All of the answers, none of the questions....
- I think an occasional ALL CAPS might work. Italics are the usual way of emphasizing.
- Be careful—readability is very important....
- Guilt won't get your book written—it just makes you feel bad.
- Find something that makes you feel good—knitting, fly fishing, basketball, old movies, video games....
- The process of learning something is for me the best part of any activity....
- Playlists for books are a great idea….
- Do it.
- The "real" person will be transformed by the magic of imagination and the exigencies of the story into a "fictional" person.
- My response was pretty basic—don't base your characters on people who will be hurt.
- Your life as you live it is your most precious writing resource. Don't be afraid to use it.
- What does your focal character see? There's your description—maybe, if it's needed
- I actually think Tolkien was doing this….
- The best novel? Oh—War & Peace, by my boy Tolstoy.
- You'd don't want your best writing buried where no one will notice it!
- Setting is always important, unless your characters are floating around shapeless in a formless void. They are some place.
- Remember—the BODY is also a setting....
- Probably The Great Gatsby, for the punctuation.
- Yes—I am inspired by em-dashes and commas!
- I may have talked about this before....
 Shelby Hearon, my first creative writing teacher: "It's never the book in your head." |  Larry Heinemann, my last creative writing teacher: "Revision is where the money is." |
- You can tag the dialogue through action or setting, too.
- What are your characters doing while talking? What are they seeing?
- Read it backwards, aloud.
- This removes the context of the paragraph, and you can see (hear) each sentence in all its glory/ignominy.
- Fifty-one years, ha!
- You have to be persistent.
- I think foreshadowing is best accomplished as an aspect of revision.
- In your first draft, going forward, it's more important to just get to the end.
- They disappear into the background—which is what we want.
- Obvious isn't always bad, and what's obvious to you—the author—isn't necessarily going to be obvious to the reader....
- Are they talking on the phone or face to face?
- They could be walking, shooting zombies, fishing, watching tv, washing dishes, sitting on the can, shopping, driving, in church, in a meeting, fighting—they could be doing whatever it is people do....
- Also—it's important to think: are they actually listening to each other?
- I mean, really—how many times do people actually fully pay attention to one another?
- Good question! I'm trying to figure this out myself!
- Try going for empathy.
- No one is really frightened.
- I would keep moving forward and get the story written and then look critically at what you have.
- Do you really need a backstory with past relationships? Maybe—but maybe not.
- You take something you've written that has a lot of problems (all texts are flawed) and then you fix the problems.
- It takes time and attention and is really rewarding.
- I think the aging process has left me more easily distracted than I once was.
- The problem with writing is that life gets in the way.
- How much time can you afford to spend on writing? For most of us—not enough.
- Having a roof over your head and food in your belly is probably more important than writing!
- A lot of writers do practice writing….
- It's great to treat yourself when you accomplish something! Everyone needs to do this!
- For me—champagne and turkey legs!
- Many years ago in a class like ours I wrote a story I thought was pretty good. But I know now it was a good student story....
- I know for a fact that at the time I wrote it, I didn't know what the heck I was doing….
- There are any number of writers who have gone down the road of pomposity.
- The best writers—the best revolutionaries, the best eye doctors, whatever—are informed by a sense of humor.
- My advice--always be aware of the absurdities and ridiculosities. And embrace them.
- My whole life up to the point I finished...?
- The difference is—LIFE.
- A LOT OF TIME.
- Just keep going down one path or another until you find the right path....
- DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING! Keep all your variations. Trust me—you have room on your hard drive.
- Each round of revision I focus something else—dialogue, setting, transitions, colors, textures, whatever....
- Write a story with a strong beginning.
- From looking out the window, from the things I see in life. From dreams. From snippets of people talking that I overhear. From things I learn....
- I look at a situation and ask, "What if...."
- There are often big big BIG differences between "Truth" and "Fact."
- The highly personal voice is always very engaging. You can do a lot with a memoir
- Do you have a citation for that?
- (I could also be stupid!)
- Borders are interesting—they are where things come together, and where things come apart....
- Life gets in the way. You just have to do the best you can with the time you have....
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